Dragons kept roughly the same daily rhythm as humans, hunting during the day and sleeping at night. Anyone hoping to collect dragon eggs had to do it while the dragons were out hunting.
Fortunately, the process went smoothly enough.
By the time they were finished, all five of them smelled bad. The towels covering their mouths and noses kept splashes of dragon dung from hitting their faces, but the stench itself was impossible to block.
Just before sunset, they finally pried three dragon eggs from a crack in the rocks.
One was pure gold.
One was brownish yellow.
The last was blue streaked with brown stripes.
Rhaegar, Aemon, and Baelon removed their outer coats and wrapped the eggs carefully in the fabric. With the sleeves tied in front, the bundles were slung over their backs like makeshift packs.
Laughing and chatting, they began the walk back.
When dragons entered their breeding season or laid eggs, they deliberately avoided humans and sought secluded places. No one had ever witnessed the process of dragon birth.
No one could even distinguish whether a dragon was male or female.
Perhaps the dragonlords of Old Valyria once knew how, but among the Targaryens, the knowledge had long since been lost.
Rhaegar himself had once tried prying apart the scales beneath Dreamfyre's belly to investigate.
The result had been a valuable discovery:
Never touch a dragon's backside.
Dragonkeepers judged a dragon's sex by where its eggs were found. If eggs appeared near a dragon's lair, they assumed that dragon was female.
The common folk used simpler reasoning, appearance and temperament.
Vermithor, for instance, had a back covered in spikes, long thick horns, and a violent temper. Surely that must be a male dragon.
Silverwing, with smoother scales, smaller horns, and a gentle nature, was naturally considered female.
Successive kings and dragonriders had never confirmed or denied these guesses.
They simply let the people speculate.
Rhaegar, however, had his own theory.
Dragons were probably hermaphroditic.
A dragon shared a spiritual bond with its rider. The longer they remained together, the more the dragon's personality, and even its gender, shifted to mirror its rider.
If a dragon's rider was a woman, the dragon gradually became gentler and might even become female.
If the rider died and the dragon later bonded with a man, its temper might grow fierce again. Its horns would thicken, and it would appear male once more.
This was the conclusion Rhaegar had reached after analyzing the relationships between generations of Targaryen riders and their dragons.
Magical creatures worked in mysterious ways.
Aemon tightened the coat bundle hanging from his shoulder.
"Baelon, what do you want to do when you grow up?"
People often said boys suddenly "grew up" one day.
They didn't mean physically.
They meant mentally.
Since his betrothal to Jocelyn, Aemon had begun thinking seriously about life, even lying awake at night contemplating the future.
Not his own future.
As Prince of Dragonstone, Aemon's path was already decided.
He was thinking about Baelon and Rhaegar.
Baelon shrugged casually.
"First I'll become a knight. Then I'll tame a dragon. After that I'll fly across the Seven Kingdoms and visit every castle."
As the second prince, Baelon lived comfortably and had never needed to worry about grand ambitions.
Aemon smiled and patted his brother's shoulder.
Then he turned to Rhaegar.
"What about you, Rhaegar? What do you want to do someday?"
"Become a rich man," Rhaegar replied. "Or maybe a small lord. Find a wife. Have a lot of children."
He didn't mention the final part of the dream:
traveling the world on dragonback.
But it was there.
Since Jaehaerys had taken the throne, Westeros had enjoyed relative peace. Even the so-called Third Dornish War was little more than the king polishing his own reputation.
After so many peaceful years, Rhaegar had begun to feel inclined toward a comfortable life.
Once he had dreamed of conquering lands and carving out his own kingdom.
But that meant hardship.
Why struggle for glory when lying comfortably at home and enjoying life was so much easier?
Power was a strange thing.
Those who had never experienced it imagined it like a king's golden hoe—impossible to understand.
But those who had tasted it rarely escaped its allure.
Rhaegar had seen and heard plenty about power.
Yet he had never truly possessed it.
For now, he simply wanted a quiet, comfortable life.
"If you want to be rich, come to King's Landing," Aemon suggested sincerely. "Merchants from all over the world gather there."
"And if you want to become a lord," he added, "you'll need to work hard. Every inch of land in the Seven Kingdoms already belongs to someone. To obtain land, a greater lord must grant it to you."
"Finding good land isn't easy," Rhaegar replied, shaking his head.
"The fertile land is already taken. Latecomers have to clear wilderness. And if nobody wanted that land for thousands of years, there's usually a reason."
"Either the soil can't grow crops, or it's a miserable place with terrible roads."
"Take the Vale, for example. Those endless mountains, no one would want them even if they were free. Nothing but rocks… and wild clans living on top of those rocks."
"Ha!"
They all laughed.
Dragonstone itself was nothing but rock as well.
The narrow path wound down the mountainside. The older Dragonkeeper led the way, while the younger one brought up the rear.
The three boys continued discussing these unusually heavy topics for their age.
But no conclusions emerged.
The return route differed from the one they had taken earlier. After rounding a hill, Dragonstone Castle and the fishing village came into view.
Torches had been lit in the village square at the base of the mountain.
The villagers were still singing and dancing in celebration of the wedding.
Among the crowd of plain robes, one figure stood out immediately—
Jaehaerys, his armor gleaming in the firelight.
Rhaegar suddenly narrowed his eyes.
That damned Jaehaerys…
He wants to make me a Dragonkeeper.
Dragonkeepers worked only on Dragonstone or at the Dragonpit in King's Landing.
Rhaegar had visited both places with Rhaena, but he had never interacted with them directly before.
They all wore the same gray robes, perpetually filthy.
Even during today's journey, Rhaegar had smelled the two Dragonkeepers accompanying them.
The smell came from dragon dung.
Dragonkeepers possessed varying degrees of Targaryen blood. To protect themselves, they smeared dragon dung on their clothes, something dragons found unpleasant.
Most of them were quiet men.
But this talkative middle-aged Dragonkeeper had clearly been chosen deliberately by Jaehaerys.
Aemon asking about Rhaegar's future… that must have been planted by him as well.
And when the man earlier explained the origins of Dragonkeepers-
It suddenly became obvious.
Dragonkeepers were essentially Targaryen bastards.
Anger began to stir in Rhaegar.
"Dragonkeeper" sounded impressive.
In reality, they were just dragon stablehands, feeding dragons and shoveling their dung.
You expect me to become one of them?
Absolutely not.
Ahead of them, Baelon sang loudly:
"♫ The great king sent me out to patrol the mountains-♫"
He had memorized the line and now repeated it endlessly on the walk back.
They soon returned to the castle.
After twisting through dark corridors, they reached the dragon egg chamber, a sweltering room lit by numerous braziers where eggs were stored.
The Dragonkeepers' task for the day was finished. After bowing to the princes, they departed.
Before Rhaegar and the others could even untie the coats holding their eggs-
BANG!
The door flew open.
Alyssa, her face wrapped in white bandages, stormed into the room.
When she saw that Rhaegar was still perfectly healthy, she immediately turned on her two newly appointed "knights" and demanded to know why they had failed to punish him.
Seeing Baelon's embarrassment and Aemon's guilty expression, Rhaegar stepped forward to rescue them.
"Alyssa, your two knights have already been defeated by me."
"If you want to challenge me again, you'll need to learn real swordsmanship from the Kingsguard, not swing a toy wooden sword."
"That's actually a good suggestion," Aemon added with perfect sincerity.
"Alyssa, if you truly want to learn martial skills, I can teach you."
Privately, he wondered whether she could even last a week.
"Really? I can train?"
Alyssa's mouth fell open with excitement as she looked up at Aemon hopefully.
"Of course," Rhaegar said quickly. "If Aemon says so, it must be true. I'm sure the queen will agree."
Alyssa wasn't a bad child.
The king and queen had too many young children to give her proper attention. The maesters only taught her lessons, and the servants lacked authority to restrain her behavior.
In truth, she was simply a neglected child starved of affection.
Give her a little encouragement and she could remain cheerful all day.
"Rhaegar!"
A shout came from the doorway.
"What is it?"
Rhaegar turned.
Rhaena and Queen Alysanne stood there, staring in shock.
The sisters looked somewhat alike despite their different clothing.
Alysanne covered her mouth with both hands, unable to speak, her expression a mixture of astonishment and confusion.
Rhaena, meanwhile, quickly shifted from shock to joy.
Her eyes glimmered with tears.
"Rhaegar!" this time Aemon and Baelon shouted.
"What's moving behind you?" Alyssa leaned forward curiously to look at Rhaegar's back.
Rhaegar twisted around.
The oval dragon egg strapped behind him still felt the same weight.
But now-
the top of the shell had cracked open.
A tiny brass-colored head, snake-like in shape, wriggled out of the opening.
Blue forelimbs clawed at the fabric as the hatchling struggled to break free.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne had seven children in total, five of whom were still alive.
Yet none of the pure-blooded Targaryens with silver hair and purple eyes had managed to hatch a dragon from the eggs placed in their cradles.
Not a single one had become a dragonrider yet.
And yet-
Rhaegar, the bastard, had gone up Dragonmont, picked up an egg-
and hatched a dragon on the way home.
Everyone in the room stared at him in stunned silence.
Rhaegar's face turned solemn.
His heart was pounding in his throat.
This-
was going to cause serious trouble.
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